I had a meeting with Michael Hall at his house in Exeter on Monday, 26th October. It was particularly worthwhile. Firstly because my recorder functioned perfectly. Secondly because of the wealth of useful information that Hall provided. He also gave me an excerpt from the book he is working on at the moment, which details Birtwistle’s theatre music and its genesis at Cranborne Chase. Future posts will deal with this, though for the details you will have to wait for the book to be published.

I have organized a series of interviews over the next few weeks and so needed some new equipment for documenting these. Much has changed since the last time I bought a portable recording device, including the prevalence of very portable high quality video and audio equipment and the dissolution of low end and professional quality gear (see, for example, the Tascam DR-100). In the end the decision was based on what I didn’t want to record. My worry with this project is that I will accumulate too much data that I have neither the time nor expertise to adequately process, leading to a situation where I fall back on old habits, clichéd categorisations and the like. With a project based on events that occurred more than forty years ago, the accuracy of memory of those who attended is going to be a major factor, and one that I am keen to construct as a positive part of the research process, such that the study informs a broader understanding of a cultural memory for these events. The blog so far has detailed what exists in written publications and the questions that I am formulating for the forthcoming interviews are based on the extent of those documents. To an extent about which I cannot be precise, loss of memory of details and the unmemorability of the events are entangled. Read the rest of this entry »